


Hang Up the Halo (Maybe You're Right)

by J (j_writes)



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-22
Updated: 2012-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-04 03:11:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/389054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_writes/pseuds/J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What happened?"  "Missed," he said succinctly.  "You don't miss."  He shrugged.  "I did today."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hang Up the Halo (Maybe You're Right)

Coulson had been out of contact for four days when the Portland job went down. _On assignment_ was the official designation, and it was Hill on the other end of their comms, calling the shots as Steve and Clint staked out the compound and Tony and Thor contained Hulk until smash time. Her directions were crisp, efficient, and Clint had long since learned not to give her any backchat – not because she commanded any more respect than Coulson did, but because her stoic silence in return made his jokes fall flat, hanging there useless in the air around them, and he'd eventually stopped seeing the fun in it.

"Have the shot, Hawkeye?" Steve's voice was low and steady in his ear, and Clint checked the wind again, peering down his bow. 

"Say the word, Cap, and we are go for fireworks," he confirmed. 

"Advance team off the ground?" Steve asked Hill, and Clint quirked an eyebrow. 

"Forget to share some info with the rest of the class?" Clint asked him.

"Need to know, Hawkeye," Hill said crisply. "You didn't." There was a pause in communication for long enough that he stretched a little, settling himself in place more firmly. "Hold," Hill's voice said finally, and it was tight and precise in a way that he had come to read as a warning.

He waited, and at the other end of his comms, the team was silent. There was a click, a hiss, and the tail end of a transmission.

"- team out," Hill was finishing, and there was a crackling pause before the response. 

"Negative." The voice was terse, clipped, and there was no reason Clint should have been able to put a name to it, not from the single word, half drowned out in static. After seven years of hearing that voice on the other end of his radio, though, there was no mistaking it.

Another click, and an admonishing, "Iron Man, your AI is not authorized to – " from Steve before Hill was back, her voice brisk and businesslike.

"Hawkeye, take the shot."

Shadows moved in the compound. The comms fell silent, and Clint waited one beat, two, until he heard a distinct indrawing of breath from Steve, and he let an arrow fly.

Chaos.  
______________

"Barton." Hill was striding toward them as Tony deposited him on the deck, her voice so loud and commanding that he could hear it clearly over the rush of the rotors.

"Ma'am," he replied politely.

"This was not your mission to command." She was close, too close, and Tony had already shot off to retrieve someone else, so he stood there alone at the edge of the carrier, carefully adjusting the strap of his quiver before looking up at her. "That compound should be in pieces right now."

"The mission was accomplished," he replied with an unnatural calm that he had spent years picking up from Natasha, or Coulson, or possibly both. "The compound is sufficiently nonfunctional. All personnel were downed, and their assets are in our hands."

"The order was shoot to demolish."

"I heard it." His voice was careful, respectful, and without the edge he wanted to give it.

"Then what happened?"

"Missed," he said succinctly.

"You don't miss," she replied, cold and inflexible.

He shrugged. "I did today." He sheathed his bow, turned neatly on his heel, and walked away, leaving her standing there on the deck of the carrier with her arms crossed, eyes following him as he went.  
______________

"What's your angle?" 

Natasha never bothered to knock anymore, just let herself into his bunk and closed the door behind her, leaning against it and barring any means he had of exit. 

"It wasn't the op we were expecting," he said.

"Yes, because that's been known to stop you in the past." She arched an eyebrow at him.

He shrugged. "We had a mission. We achieved it. Why is everyone on my ass?"

"Because you missed, Barton." She was too good at what she did to look or sound concerned, but the very fact of her presence was enough to show that she was. "You had a target, one that would have turned that whole complex into a crater, and instead you took down the men."

"Yes." He didn't elaborate.

"Which means that either you're off your game – " her expression showed exactly how likely she found that scenario to be, "or you changed the target deliberately, against orders."

"The rules of the op changed," he said flatly and finally.

"Yes. Sometimes they do. And someday maybe you'll be in a position where you get to decide whether or not that means you take the shot when you have it." 

"Is this the part where you tell me that this is not that day?"

"This is the part where I tell you that if you are off your game, you better get back on it, and if you are defying orders, you better cut that shit out right now. Because if you leave me on this team of lunatics by myself, I will not vouch for the safety of any of them for very long."

"Noted," Clint told her.

She gave him a long hard look, but she seemed to find what she was looking for, because she nodded at him, and left.  
______________

"You here to explain yourself?" Coulson didn't lift his head from his computer or pause in his typing for a moment.

"Welcome back to you too, boss," Clint replied, leaning against his doorframe. "I wasn't aware I required an explanation," he added, slipping into the office, "but if I do, I have no doubt you've read every file this place has ever generated on me, so that should give you someplace to start."

"I wrote a good three quarters of them," Coulson pointed out. He did look up at that, and pulled the glasses from his face, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "But I was referring to your actions on the latest mission, as I'm sure you're very well aware."

"As I understand it," Clint replied, "that mission had a favorable outcome."

"Favorable, perhaps. Intended, no." There was a pinched severity to his face as he watched Clint settle into the chair across from him that made something in Clint tighten up briefly. "I don't know if you're aware of this," he continued, "but you are not in a position to decide what the outcomes of your missions are supposed to be. There are a limited number of people on that list, and by limited, I essentially mean that the list consists entirely of Director Fury."

"And Hill," Clint pointed out. "And you. And sometimes Cap."

"All of whom," Coulson replied in the tone of trying to explain something to a stubborn toddler, "take their orders from the director. Unless there's some sort of communication going on that I am unaware of – " here he paused for a look that made Clint start to believe that Stark had already been called in for a talk about Jarvis-assisted eavesdropping " – you had no such orders in Portland."

"Fury hasn't been passing notes to me after class, no," Clint replied, trying for levity and falling flat when Coulson just looked at him impassively for a few moments before sighing and dropping his head into his hand again, rubbing at his forehead.

"What happened out there, Barton?" he asked, and when he looked up again, he looked tired – almost as tired as Clint had ever seen him, which was saying something after six and a half years of missions and six months with the Avengers.

"I'm not positive, sir," Clint admitted, then looked at him pointedly. "What _did_ happen out there?"

"Officially? Nothing at all."

Clint returned his level gaze. "I know you were in there." Coulson looked impassive and didn't reply. "And I know you told Hill to take the compound regardless." The lack of response to that was all the confirmation he needed. "Look," Clint said, leaning forward. "All I'm saying is that if we've got a superior with a death wish, it would be in everyone's best interests if someone just took care of it quietly." He managed a smirk. "You know, in his office late at night, for example. I know how you feel about mess."

"It generates paperwork," Coulson agreed, before sobering. "If there's anyone with a deathwish in this office," he pointed out, "it's the guy who throws himself off a building every other Tuesday."

"Thursday this week, actually."

"And furthermore," Coulson continued as if he hadn't been interrupted, "it's not in your job description to question the orders that agents on another team might be following. In fact, it is not – " he added, "in your job description to question orders at _all_ , but I've mostly given up on trying to break you of that habit. I leave you in Captain Rogers's capable hands in that regard these days." He eyed Clint. "There were days you weren't so concerned about me getting on the wrong end of one of your arrows," he reminded him.

"They were days when you were babysitting me. Forgive me if I'm not quite nostalgic for them."

"You didn't need a babysitter, Barton, you needed a team. Since you were incapable of having one at the time, you got me instead." He closed his laptop with a solid click and rested his hands against it, looking seriously at Clint over the top of it. "Next time," he said, "you take the shot. Let me worry about cleaning up the mess."

"And if you're on the other end of it?" Clint kept his voice even despite the twisting feeling he had to get around to even make the words come out.

Coulson shrugged, a smile finally ghosting across his face. "Let Fury."  
______________

The next time Clint found himself looking down his sights at a teammate, it was Banner on the ground and Coulson in his ear, backing up Steve's call to make the shot. Banner's eyes were on him – not directly, somewhere off to his left, but knowing where to look, where to nod with a finality that had Clint flinching on the inside as he shot.

It was Hulk – not Banner – that Natasha and Thor managed to retrieve from the wreckage, bleeding and battered and fighting mad, and he stayed that way long enough that the medical team began to suspect he wasn't going to turn back.

It was weeks later when word finally came, and it was Coulson who found Clint in the range, carefully shredding targets with the kind of obsessive concentration that only came after too many nights without sleep. Clint heard him coming, but didn't acknowledge him, not until Coulson was right up in his space, pressing his arm down, peeling the bow from his fingers.

"Dangerous course of action," Clint noted, "sneaking up behind a guy with a weapon."

"I don't think it counts as sneaking when you've been talking to him the whole time," Coulson pointed out, setting the bow aside. "It's not my fault you didn't bother to listen." There were deeper lines around his eyes than Clint remembered seeing there before, and when he took Clint and steered him bodily towards the door, his fingers were a little too tight, too insistent. "Banner's awake," he said in a voice that indicated he may have mentioned it before, "and himself, and asking for you. You're going to go see him." It wasn't a suggestion. "Then, you're going to sleep." That sounded a little more cautious, like he wasn't sure the order wasn't going to earn him a few bruises.

Clint felt himself practically sag in relief, and was momentarily glad for Coulson's steady hands guiding him out the door and into the hallway. He didn't say anything for a few moments, pulling away and pointing himself towards the medical bay, but when Coulson fell into step beside him, he said, "I took the shot."

"I know, Barton." Coulson's voice was quiet, even in the empty hall.

"No, I'm saying – " Clint shook his head, trying to dislodge the cobwebs that had settled, "I took it because I knew he would get himself out. I knew there was a team lined up to go in after him, and I knew that if anyone could withstand a factory getting dropped on them, it was that guy." He paused. "You know, or Thor. Or maybe Stark. Possibly also Cap." He shook his head. "Point is, I had a pretty heavy set of statistics on my side saying that he was going to climb out of there injured and green, but alive."

Coulson was quiet, their shoes echoing next to each other, and he finally said, "You're saying the situations aren't comparable."

"That's what I'm saying," Clint agreed, having spent a few too many weeks working it over in his brain.

"I appreciate your confidence in my skills as an agent," Coulson said dryly. He held the door to medical open for Clint.

Clint frowned. "That's what I'm – " he began, but Coulson firmly shut the door between them, then mimed _go down the hall. then sleep._ quite effectively through the window.

"This isn't over," Clint informed him, and Coulson blithely mimed _can't hear you_ , and walked away.  
______________

"Agent," Clint said, striding into Coulson's office.

"Agent," Coulson greeted him back, looking up and blinking.

Clint snorted. "No, I'm clarifying," he said. "Or I'm…continuing." He kicked the door shut behind him, and Coulson looked like he was going to object, then seemed to think better of it. "Your skills as an agent, you said."

"Have you slept?" Coulson looked down at his watch.

"I napped." At Coulson's skeptical look, he added, "for four hours. Which is more than you've probably slept in the past two days, so don't start giving me your disapproving face."

"I don't have a – " Coulson began, then paused. "Okay, yes, I have a disapproving face."

"You do," Clint agreed. "And I know it well, but I'm going to finish what I came in here to say, face or no. You seem to think I'm lacking in respect for your skills as an agent, because I wasn't willing to blow up a base while you were in it, but I had no problem doing it to Bruce. Is that about right?"

Coulson sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. "That's not – " he began, but Clint didn't let him finish.

"The difference here," he said, "is the word _agent_. See, that covers a whole lot of things around these parts, but last I checked – and please, let me know if I'm wrong here, because if I am, then I'm due for an upgrade – 'agent' and 'superhuman' don't actually mean the same thing." He eyed Coulson. "Not that I'm saying it's not a near thing, because I've seen Natasha in the field, and you, and Fury, come to that, but there's a difference between 'able to take out sixteen guys with nothing but a calculator and a ballpoint pen' and 'able to lift three city buses with one hand,' and I'm pretty sure you fall into the first category."

"That only happened once," Coulson said, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Barton, did you come in here to defend not causing my demise?"

"I came in here to tell you that there's a page in my record now saying that I missed a shot, and that's not entirely accurate."

"I'm not someone you need to convince of that." Coulson pushed back his chair. "That page is in your record because you refused to give Hill any other explanation, and I refused to support her decision to write you up without cause. Missing a shot doesn't count as insubordination. Direct disregard of an order for personal reasons does."

"Personal reasons," Clint repeated flatly.

"If Stark had eavesdropped on her communicating with anyone else, would you have paused for even a second?"

"Yes," Clint replied truthfully. "An agent of SHIELD is an agent of SHIELD."

Coulson nodded. "True," he agreed. "But you'd have taken the shot." Clint opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again. Coulson smiled, slow and genuine. "Thought so." He stood and stretched, closing his computer and circling around the desk. "Remember Mexico City, about three years ago?"

"Yes?" Clint said, frowning, and Coulson's expression was expectant, waiting for the pieces to click into place. "Yes," Clint said, slower. "I do."

"There was a call I could have made that day."

"I remember." Just thinking about it made the thick smell of smoke come back to him. "You didn't."

"I didn't," Coulson confirmed. He clapped Clint on the shoulder and nodded towards the door, his hand staying there, warm and solid against the fabric of his shirt for just a moment too long. "Beer?" he suggested.

"Oh, god, _beer_ ," Clint agreed, and Coulson laughed. His hand slid around to Clint's back, pushing him lightly out the door. Clint leaned against the hallway wall outside, watching him lock up, and crossed his arms, grinning. "Been a while since we had drinks together," he said. "I think technically you weren't my boss then."

"Technically," Coulson pointed out, "I'm not your boss now."

"So we wouldn't be breaking any – " Clint waved a hand. "Fraternization rules or anything?"

Coulson raised an eyebrow. "A, since when is breaking rules a deterrent for you? B, I think it only counts as fraternization if you're sleeping together, which – " Clint found himself fascinated by the way Coulson's neck went faintly pink " – unless I've missed something, we're not doing at the moment. And C," he grinned, and started down the hallway, "SHIELD is an organization that has been significantly influenced by – among other people – Howard Stark. No," he said dryly, "I'm pretty certain there are no fraternization regs to worry about."

"Perfect," Clint said. "Hey, thanks for not getting me dead," he added as he fell into step with Coulson.

Coulson looked up at him, and nodded. "Likewise," he said, and Clint started mentally running through a list of ways to try to make Coulson blush again as he followed him down the hall.


End file.
